William Murray Mansfield, earl of, a British jurist, born at Scone, Perthshire, March 2,1705, died in London, March 20, 1793. He was the third son of Viscount Stormont, a Scottish peer of Jacobite tendencies, several of whose family became deeply involved in the rebellion of 1745. Removed to London at an early age, he was educated at Westminster school, and at Christchurch college, Oxford. In 1731 he was called to the bar, and being of a vivacious temperament, with the advantages of aristocratic connections and signal personal graces, he became a companion of wits and men of letters, and in particular gained the friendship of Pope. Almost at the outset of his career a new class of business, that of appeals from the court of session in Scotland to the house of lords, fell into his hands, and his emoluments were very large. His advance was rapid, and in 1743 he was appointed solicitor general, having the year previous entered parliament for Borough-bridge, for which place he was afterward returned in 1747 and again in 1754. As a legis- , lator he displayed an eloquence "of which the clear, placid, and mellow splendor was never for an instant overclouded," and a depth and variety of knowledge which brought him into great prominence, while at the same time his peculiar political views exposed him to the attacks of Pitt, who frequently taunted his rival with his Jacobite connections and presumed sympathies.

In 1747 he was one of the managers for the impeachment of Lord Lovat, and performed his part in so generous a spirit as to elicit praise from the prisoner himself. In 1754 Mr. Murray was appointed attorney general, and in 1756 succeeded Sir Dudlev Ryder as chief justice of the king's bench, and" was created Baron Mansfield of Mansfield in the county of Nottingham. So important were Ids parliamentary services to his party, that extraordinary efforts were made by the duke of Newcastle to retain him in the house of commons, as a government leader. He was offered various sinecure offices with large salaries,;md finally a pension of £6,000 a year, but steadily refused them all, regarding the situation of chief justice as preferable to the responsibility and labors which the chancellorship, the premiership, or any other merely political office involved. Contrary to general usage, though not to precedent, he became when appointed chief justice a member of the cabinet; and in 1757, while temporarily holding the office of chancellor of the exchequer, at the request of the king he effected the coalition between Newcastle, Pitt, and Fox, which resulted in the celebrated first administration of Chatham. He participated on important occasions in the proceedings of the house of lords, where Lord Camden and subsequently Chatham became his chief antagonists.

On questions affecting popular privileges or influence he showed a decided leaning toward an arbitrary government. The stamp act, which he aided in preparing, found in him an earnest and able advocate, and the doctrine of taxation without representation was by no one more persistently defended. In reference to the agitation in the North American colonies which preceded the repeal of the act, he held that the Americans must first be compelled to submit to the power of parliament, and must exhibit "the most entire obedience" before an inquiry could be had into their grievances. The utterance of opinions like these marked him out as an object of popular dislike and party violence, and for many years he was attacked with a vindictiveness which found its fullest expression in the letters of Junius, by whom "all the resources of the English language were exhausted in desolating and unpunished party libels on the chief justice of England." He nevertheless performed his judicial duties with dignity and courage; and on the occasion of the application of Wilkes in 1768 for the reversal of his outlawry, when public excitement had reached an almost unprecedented height, and the chief justice had been repeatedly threatened in anonymous letters, he announced to the partisans of Wilkes, who crowded Westminster hall, his contempt l«>r the means that had been taken to deter the court from its duty.

His unpopularity was still further increased by his direction to the jury in the trial of Woodfall, the publisher of Junius, "that the printing and sense of the paper were alone what they had to consider of." This attempt to restrict the right claimed bv juries, in criminal prosecutions for libel,of determining whether a paper was a libel or not brought upon Lord Mansfield the charge of arrogating to himself the functions of a legislator rather than of an administrator of the law; and Junius in his letter of Nov. 14, 1770, said to him: "No learned man, even among your own tribe, thinks you qualified to preside in a court of common law; yet it is confessed that, under Justinian, you might have made an incomparable prretor." In the Gordon or "no popery " riots of 1780 his house in Bloomsbury square, with its valuable library of books and manuscripts, his private papers, furniture, and other valuables, was destroyed by the mob, from whose fury he only escaped by taking refuse in Buckingham palace. He bore these misfortunes with a calmness which seemed to disarm his enemies, declining any pecuniary compensation from the treasury; and during the remainder of his life parties generally united in a feeling of respect for his character and virtues.

He retained his office of chief justice till 1788, having in the interim several times declined the chancellorship, and passed the last few years of his life in retirement. He left no children, and his title of earl of Mansfield, granted in 1776, descended to his nephew Viscount Stor-mont, to whom the greater part of his large property was bequeathed. The title of Baron Mansfield expired with him. - As a jurist the character of Lord Mansfield contrasts favorably with the timidity and narrow-mindedness which marked his legislative career; and when not influenced by political views his decisions wore almost uniformly correct. Commencing his judicial career as a reformer, he aimed at expediting legal proceedings, and by diminishing the expenses of suitors, and preventing unnecessary delays, caused the business of the courts, though greatly increased, to be despatched with unexampled rapidity. Gifted with an acute and powerful intellect, and with a wonderfully retentive memory, he was in the habit of considering the intent and spirit of the law rather than its letter; but his eagerness to discourage technicalities, and preference of the principles of the civil law, occasionally led him to make the law instead of expounding it.

In constructing a system of jurisprudence and adapting a progressive state of society to circumstances and cases entirely new, he was eminently successful; and English commercial law, particularly that branch of it relating to marine insurance, will be an enduring monument of his genius and industry. His conduct on the bene!, was marked by great dignity and , amenity of manners, and in general he showed' hnnself so worthy of his high office that Lord hatham, for many years his determined political opponent, comparing him with two of the most illustrious British jurists, Somers and Holt, exclaimed: " I vow to God, I think the noble lord excels them both in abilities." Though opposed to liberal ideas, he was uniformly tolerant in matters of religious opinion.

His arguments and decisions are preserved in Atkins s, Burrows's, Douglas's, and Oowper's reports; and his life has been written by John Holiday(1797), Henry Roscoe (1888), and Lord Campbell in "Lives of the Chief Justices" (1849-'57). See also "Sketches of Statesmen who flourished in the Time of George III.," by Lord Brougham (1839-'43); and "The Judges of England," by Edward Foss (1848-'64).